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Friday, February 25, 2011

30 Rock "TGS Hates Women" Reaction

Oh, "30 Rock", you always find a way to make me laugh, even when I shouldn't. The twist in Thursday's episode, "TGS Hates Women," was altogether creepy, but I was laughing the entire time as Abby Flynn/Grossman (guest star Cristin Milioti) had her breakdown.

But Milioti wasn't the top guest star of the week -- and no, her fake boobs weren't either. That honor instead goes to Chloe Moretz, who played the heiress to the Kabletown empire and turned out to be a perfect foil for Jack Donaghy.

The A story of the week featured Liz bringing in female comedian Abby Flynn as a guest writer, in response to criticism from a popular blog that TGS hates women. Only, it turns out Flynn is an oversexualized child woman, which Liz thinks is her way of responding to "pressure from society." While Flynn bounces around for the TGS crew, Liz tries to get her to drop the sexy baby act, which Flynn insists isn't an act. But Liz finds out that before she was Abby Flynn, she was Abby Grossman, a relatively standard, plain, brunette female stand up. Again, Liz thinks the image change was "pressure from society", but it turns out that Grossman adopted a new identity to hide from her psychotic ex-husband, who was electrocuted while watching "Sleeping With the Enemy" (then again while watching "Seven", resulting in a funny-but-horrible head-in-a-box joke).

As funny as that storyline was, I thought it missed some opportunities. They really should have played up things between Abby (pre-unmasking) and Jenna, whose jealousy was on display. Also, the idea of Frank, Toofer and Lutz taking on new personalities could have been hilarious, but instead was mentioned pretty much just once, then dropped.

Normally, that would have made for a disappointing episode, but the stuff between Jack and Kaylie (Moretz) was great. Jack was trying to make sure Kaylie wouldn't have an interest in TV, so he'd be free to take over Kabletown. So he invited Kaylie to NBC, where she revealed that she was more interested in marine biology. They went on a tour of the aquarium, where Jack's childhood interest in marine biology was suddenly rekindled. Only Jack figured out he'd been played, and Kaylie was trying to get HIM out of the way. The scene between the two of them at Kaylie's school was everything that last week's negotiation scenes with Jack and his Nanny were not.

OK, now for the top 10 lines of the week that DIDN'T come from that scene.

Liz: "At the very least, we should be elevating the way women are perceived in society and... OH MY PERIOD! YOU'RE ALL FIRED!"[Seriously, "30 Rock" has been KILLING IT in the cold opens this season]

Jack: "You are genetically predisposed to compete against other women for the attention of strong, powerful men like myself or others very similar to me. For example, Hercules, The Highlander, or, uh, God."

Liz: "I support women. I'm like a human bra."

Jack: "The parents' generation was lost to 'Trust Fund Kids Disease.' The aunt smokes pot and paints, and the father is trying to sail an inflatable castle across the Atlantic. I have to ensure that Kaylie makes similar choices."

Liz: "Potential is the difference between what you can't do and what can't you do."
Jack: "Did you get that off of a water bottle?"
Liz: "No. I sent it in, but AquaFem did not choose it."

Abby: "Our nips just touched. Mine are so hard."
Liz: "Mine are different sizes."[I feel like I say this every week with Liz, but EWWWWW]

Jack: "Lemon, is that the new woman you hired."
Abby: "Is it cold in here or is it just that I'm not wearing any underwear."
Jack: "She should be careful around the crew. New York gives us a tax break for employing sex offenders. It's a terrible program."

Liz: "This place is very special to me."
Abby: "Is this where you got your v-card punched?"
Liz: "What? No! Does this look like the makeup room of a clown academy? No."

Abby: [in almost normal voice] "I don't know where you found that, but I am taking it down." [back to sexy baby voice] "That's what she said!"
Liz: "OK, first of all, Steve Carrell OWNS 'That's what she said.' He owns it!"

Abby: "You're right Liz. I was hiding... from a man who went insane after being electrocuted while watching 'Sleeping with the Enemy'."
Jenna: "I was cut out of that."